…on a mission to get healthy!

I finished the Race for the Cure in under 1 hour…barely. But I made it and that’s what counts. I did start out jogging and had high hopes of jogging at least half of it. That didn’t happen. As soon as I started, my chest started burning and I was having problems breathing. I tried telling myself it was all in my mind. I slowed my jog. I tried to breathe through my nose and out through my mouth. I started out with Eminem’s “Lose Yourself.” It’s a great song and it motivated me well on Thursday. I jogged all the way through that song and halfway through the next one and that was on my third round of jogging on that day. I barely made it through half of the song before I started walking during the Race.
I kept my walking pace brisk for me. Sure I kept getting passed but I didn’t care. It was way different from the first 5k I ever did. That one, I felt like a complete failure. This time, I kept plugging away. At times I even did a long stride fast walk. My total time? 56:09. I met Sheila about halfway through. She and I kept passing each other along the way and finally just walked side by side. She walked for her mom who has stage 4 breast cancer. We both decided to jog the last bit and it took all I had to jog the last less than 2 blocks of that race. I had the same chest seizing up wheezing problems that I had in the beginning. I kept telling myself I can do this and Sheila kept telling me I could do it and we finished the race together.

I am going to go back to the c25k training and see if I can get my breathing under control. If it’s not better today without the adrenaline rush then I’m gonna call my doc and have her order me an inhaler. I really do like jogging and the freedom it gives. It’s calming and peaceful and something to get me away from the stress of life. I don’t want it to be stressful.

While looking up a couple of things before the Race, I came across the half-marathons for Race for the Cure. One has piqued my interest. Yes a half-marathon! Who wouldn’t want to do a half marathon in Hawaii on their honeymoon? Yep. There’s happens to be when we’ll be in Hawaii. It comes with added stipulations—like a minimum of $2300 in fundraising—but it also comes with perks—hotel stay. I’ve been tossing it around in my head since I saw it.

It’s time for Jeff and I to have a serious heart to heart and decide if we are going to renew our vows in Hawaii next year or not. I know he says we are going to do that but we are talking a $10k chunk of change that we just don’t have lying around (and that’s not counting a dress, cake, wedding stuff, etc). It is something that we can do if we plan for it now…but we haven’t yet and that scares me. I don’t want to commit to something or tell someone who might be coming that it’s going to happen only to have us not be able to afford to go.